


Got your back

by aces



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-05 06:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20484359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: Beckett and Esposito: they’ve got each other’s backs, through the years.





	Got your back

**Author's Note:**

> Relationships: Beckett/Esposito, also Beckett/Demming, Beckett/Josh, Beckett/Castle, Esposito/OFC, Esposito/Lanie  
Warnings/spoilers: Spoilery for throughout all aired episodes (quoted lines at beginning of certain scenes from 1x7 "Home is Where the Heart Stops," 2x3 "Inventing the Girl")  
For LJ user harper_m for the Planned Parenthood fandom_help ficathon.  
A/N part II: I’ve probably taken some liberties with everyone’s backgrounds in this fic, but I did try to double-check as many of my facts as possible. I apologize for any remaining errors and discontinuities.

“Got a suspect,” the new guy says, handing a folder over. Kate flips it open to find a criminal record and old police report. “Found him on the CCTV footage outside the convenience store, really obviously casing the joint and really terribly hiding his gun.”

Kate finishes looking through the file. “Good job,” she says at last, handing it back to him. He takes it and waits, almost military parade rest; he meets her gaze squarely—he always does, she realizes. Most of the guys—the new ones especially—glance at her and then away, quickly. Javier Esposito doesn’t, and it makes him interesting. “Go to his listed address, see if you can track him down. Take Ryan with you, okay?”

“On it,” he says, and Kate watches him grab the other new guy and head out of the bullpen.

He says he likes the easy ones—she’s overheard him tell Ryan as much—but he’s good at tracking down details, collating information, interviewing suspects. He doesn’t always think the furthest out of the box, but he comes up with good leads and follows through quickly. If he wasn’t already partnered with Ryan, she’d almost consider asking Captain Montgomery—

Nah. Kate shakes her head, turning back to her computer and phone, trying to find the number for the convenience store. She doesn’t need a partner, even if she does think she could implicitly trust Javier Esposito.

*

Before he joined the 12th, Javi had heard about Kate Beckett. Almost everyone has in the NYPD, with the opinions ranging from hard-nosed snobby bitch to obsessed freak to damn good cop. Esposito listens to whatever people have to say, but he rarely lets it color his opinion, and he damn well isn’t going to let what everyone else thinks color his opinions on his comrades and fellow cops.

But, he has to admit to himself and to his new partner Ryan, he is curious.

He takes to watching Beckett as she moves around the precinct, through the bullpen, getting a cup of coffee, interrogating suspects. She goes through partners and probies like they’re sneakers; they either can’t keep up with her or aren’t exacting enough for her tastes. Maybe she is as obsessive as some of the guys say—but what good cop isn’t a little obsessed with the job?—and maybe she really enjoys the freaky murder cases a little more than the average cop (certainly more than Javier); either way she is, in Javi’s estimation, a damn good cop.

She also wears freakishly tall heels for an already-tall woman and looks kinda hot in black turtlenecks, but Javi damn well isn’t going to tell anyone that, including his partner. The cop rumor mill can be both vicious and swift.

“Hey Esposito,” Beckett calls across the bullpen one night, late, after wrapping up a big case.

“Yeah?” Javi looks up briefly from the computer screen where he’s reluctantly writing up his report. Typing isn’t the problem; the writing is, but Ryan had refused to write up any more reports for him, _and_ he’d lost their last bet so he had to write up _Ryan’s_ too.

“Some of us are going to get a drink,” she said, stopping by his desk. “Wanna come?”

Catch a drink with Beckett, or write up a report? Hell yeah Javi knows which option he prefers. “Sure,” he says, powering down his computer.

She waits for him and they ride down the elevator together. She doesn’t make any small talk—she does, sometimes, in interviews or with regular people, but Espo likes that she doesn’t bother with him. He isn’t much for small talk.

(Later, he’ll realize she isn’t just making small talk, she’s genuinely interested. Later, he’ll realize how little he really does know about Kate Beckett.)

They join a small group at one of the local favorite cop bars and order beers. It being a Sunday the next day, and most of them actually having the day off, beer turns to shots, and one thing leading to another, Javier Esposito finds himself challenging Kate Beckett to a drinking contest. He can hear his mother praying for the misguided soul of her son in the back of his mind even as the words leave his lips, but hell with it, how else do you get to know the true mettle of your teammates?

To Javi’s mingled shame and respect, he loses. To his even deeper shame and utterly secret gratitude, Beckett holds his head while he pukes in the men’s toilet.

*

Esposito pays attention to Beckett. She notices the way his eyes follow her around the precinct; she notices the way he focuses on her completely when speaking, even when the captain or her partner is there with them.

She has to admit, she likes it. So much so she makes him challenge her to a drinking contest, and when that goes well and she sees him at the police gym working with the weights she challenges him to a sparring match.

He’s about her height when she isn’t wearing the heels, but he’s got the bulk and the mass, so she tries to use that to her advantage. He flips her down onto the mat, she pins him there. He’s so focused on the sparring he doesn’t even notice _her_, and Kate appreciates that. He’s careful too, doesn’t hold back but controls his force, makes sure not to actually harm her even as he takes her down. He wins in the end, but he’s as breathless and sweaty as she is.

They hit the showers, come out of the lockers almost at the same time, and that’s what tips it for Beckett. “Hey Espo, want to get a drink?”

“Is this going to be a drink like last time?” Javier hesitates wryly, and Beckett laughs.

“No drinking contests,” she says, “Promise. I just don’t like to drink alone.”

Javier looks around and then shrugs. “Yeah, why not?” he says.

It’s late on a Saturday again, and this time Beckett orders a glass of red and Javi gets something involving tequila. It’s not small talk when she asks him what he thought of the really stupid play in the game last night, and one drink turns into dinner turns into Beckett pulling Javier into her cab.

“Beckett, I live on the other side of town,” he objects, and Beckett puts a single finger over his lips. He stills instantly and looks her in the eye, assessingly.

“I like you,” she says. “And I think you like me, and I trust your discretion. It’s late on a Saturday night, I haven’t been laid in way too long, and I don’t feel like going home alone tonight. Okay?”

Esposito keeps looking at her, the way he always looks at her— evaluating, careful, but respectful. “Can I trust you to keep it professional at work?” she asks.

He seems to come to a decision, and he leans across the back seat of the cab to give her a single, lingering kiss. “Yeah,” he says when he sits back, but he keeps his hand on her thigh, and her pulse picks up. They both settle back for the cab ride, the hand on her thigh a promise.

“You know,” he says, “I wouldn’t have said yes if you hadn’t been wearing that black turtleneck.”

Beckett grins. “Yeah,” she says, “I did know.”

*

_Ryan: Nice dress._  
_Esposito: What there is of it._  
_Beckett: I’d let you borrow it, Esposito, but you stretched out the last one._

It doesn’t become a thing between them, some sort of sleazy rendezvous every other Tuesday at four or something, and it really—surprisingly—doesn’t affect their working relationship. Esposito continues to watch Beckett, and Beckett continues to trust Espo to follow her lead and give her a different perspective when they’re working together on a case.

She also continues to wear black turtlenecks.

On a case they have to go undercover as husband and wife, some high-end swanky party to catch out a high-end thief and murderess. Beckett looks right at home in her slinky little black dress, and Espo does his damnedest not to pull at his collar. He and Ryan had flipped for who would escort Beckett to the shindig and who would have to be the ignominious waiter. Espo figures if they both have to wear collars that chafe, at least he has the pretty dame on his arm.

They gather their intel, get some leads that will hopefully go somewhere, and they’re wrapping up back at the office in the wee small hours after the party, deciding who will do what tomorrow morning—a few hours later today—when they all come back after some rest. Beckett’s still wearing her dress, Espo’s in his shirtsleeves but at least with his top buttons unbuttoned. Ryan and the rest have already headed out. Espo stops by Kate’s desk and says in a low voice, “You look damned hot, Detective Beckett.”

Kate doesn’t look up from her screen. “You don’t look so bad yourself, Esposito,” she says just as quietly.

“I think that dress needs to come off you.” Espo takes risks, yes, but always after weighing them carefully.

Then again, that dress is maybe putting him off his game a little.

“And I think you should never wear suspenders again,” Kate answers as she turns off her monitor and stands up. “They look too good on you. Are we going to do something about these two problems, Javi?”

“Yes ma’am,” Esposito replies.

He apologizes later for the dress, he’d been a little too enthusiastic in helping her take it off.

*

_Beckett: How did you find out about this?_  
_Esposito: Called your dad._

Kate Beckett keeps her personal life strictly separate from her work life—as strictly separate as possible, especially when she’s occasionally fucking one of her co-workers. But that—even that’s separate. She trusted Esposito with her life from the moment she met him, and she’s not sure she’s ever met anybody else she felt like that about upon first meeting.

Except, probably, her parents. Not that Kate remembers the day she was born. But she remembers putting her life in her dad’s hands, and she remembers how it felt holding his life in hers.

She’s eating dinner with him one night, a little Thai restaurant she’d heard about and thought he might like to try, and in walks Esposito with the new woman he’s dating. She’s heard Ryan teasing him about her, but Javi has never even flushed (she can always tell when he’s blushing, even if it’s not obvious to most people), so she doesn’t think it’s very serious for either Espo or the woman.

It still takes all her self-control not to choke on a peanut when she sees them.

“Beckett,” Espo sees her and smiles, steering his girlfriend over to their table when the hostess would have seated them across the small room. “Hey, chicka, how’s it going?”

“Good, you enjoying your day off, Espo?” Beckett wipes her mouth with her napkin, standing up at the same time her dad does. “Javier Esposito, this is my father, Jim. Dad, this is one of the detectives I work with.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Esposito says, shaking her dad’s hand firmly, and he’s controlling himself well (she still doesn’t see a flush). “Your daughter’s a really great cop.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Mr. Esposito,” her dad says, and Kate hides a smile.

“Javier, sir, please,” Espo says with a flash of a grin, “and we should let you get back to your meal. Good to see you, Beckett; enjoy the rest of your evening, sir.”

Her dad quirks an eyebrow at her as they sit back down. “Quite the gentleman,” he says, and Kate rolls her eyes.

“You’re not a perp,” she tells him.

They end up getting drinks after dinner, the four of them, and her dad ends up giving Esposito his card when they find out they have a mutual interest in watching poker tournaments on tv. The evening ends well, but Kate is uneasy as she says good night to her dad.

She has a horrible feeling that Espo knowing her dad will come back to bite her in the ass some day.

*

At first, Esposito doesn’t think much of Richard Castle, other than as some rich dick who may or may not have committed murder based on his own damn books. Later, Castle just becomes some rich dick who could either be helpful or just in the way—a puppy wagging his tail around Beckett and joyfully playing with his new toy.

The espresso machine gives the writer a few points, admittedly.

Beckett doesn’t change, even if she manages to keep Castle around longer than most former partners and probies. Beckett doesn’t change at first, she just expands the circle of detectives she trusts to include Castle. She still keeps looking to Javier and Ryan for ideas, support, more legwork.

But she likes Castle—despite herself, Esposito knows—and that surprises him.

*

“_God_!” Beckett slams her phone down, ending yet another annoying conversation with her ‘partner.’

“What’d he do this time?” Esposito asks. She doesn’t know how long he’s been standing next to her desk--a bad sign, since she’s usually much more aware of her surroundings.

“Be himself?” she says. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Why haven’t you kicked him to the curb yet?” Espo asks, reasonably.

“Because the captain will reassign me to traffic,” Kate retorts, finally taking the file he’s been holding out to her all along.

“No, he won’t,” Javier says. “You’re too good at what you do. Face it, Beckett; if you really wanted to get rid of Castle, you could.”

“Oh really.” Beckett glares up at the other detective. “Then why do _you_ think I haven’t kicked him to the curb yet?”

Espo shrugs and turns to head back to his desk. “You secretly like him. Or,” he adds, turning and deftly catching the stress ball shaped like a baseball that Kate has hurled at his back, “you’re just keeping him around for his espresso machine.”

“For which we all thank you, by the way,” Ryan adds from his own desk, not bothering to look up from his computer screen. Javi gives Kate his best soulful look, nodding in agreement, before tossing the stress ball back at her.

Beckett shakes her head. At least tonight she’s having drinks with Lanie, who she knows will commiserate with her about how all men are assholes and jerks.

*

“Hey, Esposito.”

Javier looks up from the paperwork on his desk to find Castle standing there, frowning down at him. “What up, bro?” Javi says, leaning back in his chair.

“Can I ask you a favor?”

Espo sits a little straighter. “Depends,” he says, cautiously.

“I want to see Beckett’s mom’s case file.”

Esposito takes a moment to let that sink in. “How the hell do you know about her mom?” he asks at last, carefully. It’s one thing for the entire precinct—hell, probably the entire NYPD—to know about the infamous Beckett’s history. It’s another for _anyone_ to break ranks and tell an outsider.

So Castle tells him about Beckett coming to his apartment for help on figuring out Melanie Cavanaugh’s death, about figuring out Sam Cavanaugh’s death, about Kate Beckett herself telling Castle why she wears that watch and that ring on a chain around her neck. In all the years that he has known her, Beckett has never spoken about Johanna Beckett in Javier’s presence. He’s never dared ask her about it, not even in their most intimate moments.

There are some cracks, some damages, that you just don’t talk about.

Javi takes another moment after Castle finishes speaking, and then he goes into the records database to track down which box Johanna Beckett’s case file will be in and hopes nobody’s checked it out and put it back in the wrong damn box, as so often happens. “C’mon,” he says, and leads Castle to the elevator and the archives.

He tracks down the box—and the file is there, thank God—and hands it over to Castle. “Remember, this never happened,” he says. “I wasn’t here.” He starts to turn away, and Kate’s face flashes up in his mind, the look of pure anger when she finds out what he’s done. He turns back with a cough and says, meaningfully, “If you tell her I did this, I will make you bleed.”

“Understood.” Castle takes it more calmly than he should, but it’s the end of the night and Espo is beat.

“Good luck,” he says and walks away.

*

“You gonna do that Russian accent again?” Esposito asks as he walks past Kate’s desk to his own in the bullpen. He sprawls into his chair and pokes disinterestedly at the case files sitting next to his computer. They can wait till the morning. “’Cause, seriously. Hot.”

“Maybe, if you’re a good boy,” Beckett retorts, sitting back from her hunch over the computer and stretching her back. “Hey, Espo, I’ve got a question for you.”

“Lay it on me.”

“How did Castle get my mom’s case file?”

Javier stills.

“Because I’m pretty sure no records clerk downstairs would just hand it off to him like that, and I’m pretty sure I saw your name in the database for who checked the file out a few months ago,” Beckett keeps her tone casual, as if she were talking about just any old case file. “And unless Castle has some mad computer hacking skills I didn’t know about, I’m guessing you really did check the file out for him.”

Esposito looks up at her. She meets his gaze, and by this point in her life, she has gotten very good at not tearing up every time she speaks about her mother.

“Why did you do it, Javi,” she says quietly. “Why did you do that to me.”

“Because you trust him enough to tell him your deepest, darkest secret,” Esposito says, and he’s sitting military straight; she’s almost afraid he’s going to salute her. “Because despite what he did, you took him back. Because you _like_ him, Kate, and I trust you, so I trusted him.”

Kate looks down at her desk. “I don’t know what to do now,” she says softly. “I have—I have this new information now, and I don’t know what to do with it.”

She hears a rustle and looks up to find Esposito walking toward her. He sits down on the edge of her desk, looks around to make sure there’s nobody else in the bullpen, and takes her hand. “You sit on it,” he says. “You sit on it until you can use it, and then you catch the son of a bitch who killed your mom.”

She squeezes his hand reflexively, and he squeezes back before letting go and heading back for his desk. “And in the meantime, we’re all stuck with Castle again, so you actually _owe_ me,” he calls over his shoulder.

Kate rolls her eyes. “I know about the bet you had with Ryan,” she retorts, “so actually _you_ still owe _me_.”

*

Esposito sees it, as soon as Beckett and Demming are in the same room. There’s an easy attraction there; and they both really like the weird ones. Beckett’s usually pretty hard to read—or maybe she’s just rarely interested in anyone, so when she does display some interest, it’s pretty damn noticeable.

He’s not sure how he feels about them hooking up. The more time he spends with Castle, the more he likes the man (despite himself); the more time he spends with Castle, the more he sees how much Castle likes Beckett.

Javi’s loyalties are, admittedly, divided. It’s easier when Demming may be a suspect—anything, if it means his old partner isn’t the bad guy IA tried to force him to be. When Demming’s cleared, though…

Esposito wants Kate to be happy, and he’s just not sure Demming is the man for that. He says something to Kate, in a fit of temper, and then when he watches Castle walk off with his ex-wife for a summer in the Hamptons—

Damn, he feels like shit.

He tells Ryan and Lanie about it later, when the three of them are eating the last of the pizza and drinking the last of the beer. A haze of confessional drunkenness that, were he even slightly more sober, he would have avoided like the plague 'cause, seriously, _cop rumor mill_. “You don’t go messing in other peoples’ lives like that, Javi,” Ryan says, shaking his head with all the sorrowful disappointment of an Irish priest lecturing one of his flock. “I thought you knew that, bro.”

“You broke up my girlfriend and her boyfriend?” Lanie glares at him. “I’m gonna come over and smack you for that, you know that, right?”

“I do indeed,” Javier says, glancing at her ass as she walks past with a small pile of pizza boxes precariously balanced on top of each other.

“And stop checking out my ass,” she says.

“C’mon! Yell at me for one thing at a time here!” he protests.

Lanie dumps her pizza boxes and turns around, folding her arms and glaring at both men. “You’re both missing the point,” she says. “Okay, Kevin, you’re not really,” she relents immediately when he opens his mouth to protest, and she continues to override him, “but the _point_ is that Beckett has commitment issues. If this hadn’t come up, something else would have, and she would have found a reason to break up with Demming. Even with his fine ass,” she adds with a flutter of her eyelashes, and Javi finds himself straightening unconsciously.

“She’s committed to the job,” Ryan points out, and Lanie looks at him long-sufferingly.

“That’s different, honey, and you know it,” she says. “When Beckett finds the right person, she will commit. Or so she keeps telling everyone. I think it’s just an excuse,” she adds.

“What about _my_ fine ass?” Javi says, and as soon as the words leave his lips he knows he’s had way too much to drink tonight.

Lanie slaps it on her way past again, aiming for a collection of beer bottles on the table. “It’s just fine, sweetheart, it’s just fine,” she tells him with a wink, and Javi smiles back before remembering he’s supposed to be feeling guilty.

*

“Javier Esposito,” Lanie says as she plants herself in the booth across from Kate, tossing her purse in the corner.

“What about him?” Kate blinks.

“I know about you two, woman,” Lanie says and pauses to order her cosmopolitan; Kate takes the opportunity to take another sip of wine. “I know you two go waaaaay back.”

“That’s just—a thing,” Beckett replies. She finds it difficult to articulate what relationship she and Javi have; more than friendship, different than some romantic relationship, as important as any partnership she’s ever known. “A thing we do sometimes when we both need--a little break.”

“You haven’t been doing that ‘thing’ lately, though, right? I mean, you’ve been all Josh-this, Josh-that?”

Kate sits back to study her friend through narrowed eyes. “What exactly are you asking me, Lanie Parrish?” she finally demands.

Lanie goes all demure—Kate can’t believe how she gets away with that—lowering her eyes and glancing away. She’s dressed in a low-cut top, and Kate saw her outrageous heels before she sat down. “I’m asking as a friend, would you care if your _friend_ took me out on a date?”

“Of course not,” Kate says. “Lanie, you know Javi and I both date people. We’re just—we—we’re just _us_.”

Lanie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, you two may be ‘you,’ but you’re also both my friends and colleagues, and I don’t want to screw anything up.” She looks fleetingly serious, and the waiter sets her cosmo down in front of her. “We’ve all got good working relationships, and you’re my best friend. Those are both more important to me than a great lay.”

Kate quirks her eyebrows. “And you know he’s a great lay because you’ve already found this out…?”

“Girl, no, we’re going on our first date tonight. I know because _you_ have told me, on more than one occasion, usually after a few more glasses of that.” Lanie nods at Beckett’s wine glass, then clinks her martini glass against it before taking a genteel sip.

“Oh yeah.” Kate hides her grin behind her wine. She sets the glass down and looks inquiringly at the M.E. “So you don’t mind, uh, that I’ve kinda been there before?” She’s noticed the two of them dancing around each other a little more of late—Javi’s always played the gallant around Lanie, and Lanie’s always flirted a little more with him than most of the cops, but Kate’s surprised they’ve decided to do something about it and that Lanie hadn’t said something sooner.

“Not if you don’t,” Lanie sounds comfortable, the way only she could. “Honey, he is _hot_. Hot like burning. And you two would never work long-term anyway.”

“No,” Kate says, “we definitely would not.” She pauses. “Does that mean you think you two could?”

Lanie shrugs and takes another drink. “Right now? I couldn’t care less. I just wanna get hold of that butt.”

Kate begins laughing and clinks her glass with Lanie’s. “It’s a really fantastic butt,” she admits with another grin.

*

“You have fabulous breasts,” Javi says fervently, his voice slightly muffled.

“Honey, tell me something I don’t know.” But Lanie sounds amused rather than impatient, so Javi stays exactly where he is because by _God_ he is enjoying himself, and apparently so is she.

Later, lying together—they’d made it to the bed and stayed there, this time—Javi is worrying at what Ryan had said earlier that day, and Lanie pokes him in the shoulder. “What is so important you’re ignoring the fact that I’m lying here naked?”

Espo catches her finger and licks it. “They all know at work,” he says when he releases her finger. He gives her a moment for her eyes to stop glazing over and to get her thoughts back in order.

“Of course they do,” she says finally. “I asked Beckett about you before our first date.”

“You did what?!”

Lanie pushes him down into the bed and slings a leg over his torso to wrap herself around him. “I’ve known about you and Beckett for _years_,” she says. “Beckett is so much better at hiding things than you are, honey. Also, she and I are girlfriends. We tell each other most things.”

“But—but—”

Lanie props her head up on her hand, peering down her nose at him in amusement. It’s hard to concentrate when she’s lying on top of him and looking provocative and naked.

It’s easy to remain completely professional with Beckett because she fascinates him and he respects the hell out of her, because she’s his friend and one of his partners—not like Ryan, but she’s on his _team_, and that means something in Javier’s worldview. What they do with each other—it’s teammates helping each other out. And, admittedly, enjoying themselves. But she’s damaged, as much as he is if not more so, and he knows they could never make it work in some kind of long-term, stable relationship, the kind he thinks they’d both like to have, someday.

Lanie’s different, and Javi hasn’t yet figured out how to tell her that, and that that’s why it’s harder for him to act cool when it comes to her. It’s been a while since he’s dated somebody more than a handful of times. He doesn’t know how this one will play out, but in the meantime, he’s enjoying the hell out of himself.

“But?” Lanie questions, bringing Javi back to the present moment and the fact that there is, indeed, a gorgeous woman lying naked on top of him.

He slaps her butt. “What about it?” he grins, and she retaliates, and that’s the end of the matter, at least for a while.

*

Kate hates how everyone watches her out of the corner of their eyes. She hates that they tread lightly and carefully around her and treat her with some kind of delicate respect, after her shooting. She hated it when the cops and counselors and other students did the same thing when her mother died; she hates it even more now because it’s as familiar and bitter as the whiskey in the bottle she drinks from, the same kind of whisky that used to lay her dad out after his wife died.

They’re all worrying about her and protecting her—Lanie, Castle, Ryan, Espo. She can handle it from Lanie, she can even handle it from Ryan because he _is_ the big softie on the team and everyone knows it, Ryan included. It pisses her off unreasonably from Castle—he doesn’t have the _right_ to worry like that—and it pisses her off even more from Esposito because she thought of all the guys on the force, of all her _team_, he would understand. He’s been through the wars, literally; he’s always understood her the way no one else has except maybe Royce and her father; and he’s always had her back.

She knows she’s damaged. She knows it and she’s damned well trying to fix it, and it’s not anybody else’s problem. She can do this on her own.

*

After her shooting, Esposito is watchful. Beckett withdraws—not surprising; Javier recognizes and understands the need to isolate in order to recuperate and save face, and he knows how Beckett operates—but Castle is there, every day, fighting, and Javi respects that. When Kate comes back to the job—and persuades Castle to come back, and Espo is really shocked that neither he nor Ryan realized she and Castle hadn’t spoken in months—he is watchful.

She’s fine, or at least that’s how she appears to everyone, including Ryan and Castle, as well as their new captain. Castle’s mentioned something once or twice, occasionally worried; Ryan’s argued with him a few times about her case, about how far they should go to help her out, but both of them let the concern fade as Kate gets back into the routine of work and seems like her old self. She’s as cool, calm, and collected as she ever was; she’s as in-charge and competent as ever she was; she’s as broken and hurt as ever she was, only more so. Esposito knows. So he waits because he knows something is going to trigger, and she needs somebody to watch her back.

Lanie insists they don’t use the word “sniper,” which Javi thinks is stupid. Better to confront, put the problem out in the open and identify it, and he’s glad when Kate calls them both out on it.

He’s worked with Castle long enough now they can play off each other, and he’s as grateful for that as Castle is, he thinks. And he trusts Castle now, as implicitly as he does Beckett or his partner, so when Castle asks him to help Kate, he agrees.

Despite himself, despite himself, Kate is still a girl and somebody he loves, so when she’s crying and holding the sniper’s rifle that shot her, he has to force himself to take a step back and walk away, give her the space he knows she needs now, rather than take her in his arms and hold her while she cries.

She can show him her weakness, but she needs him to let her find her own strength.

*

Kate could kick Lanie’s and Espo’s asses for “taking a break” the way they do. She hears all about it from Lanie, over angry martinis that never quite devolve into tearful glasses of wine because Lanie is too proud for that. Ryan looks wretched and awkward for a few days—but then, he’s been looking more wretched and awkward more often the past few months, when he’s not alternating between anxiety and happiness over his impending marriage—and Espo tries his damnedest to avoid both the M.E. and Beckett, which is damned hard when you work with both of them.

“I should slap you upside the head, Javi,” Kate finally snaps one day, catching him outside the precinct when they’re both heading home for the night. “Believe me, I’ve been tempted to do the same to Lanie too.”

“None of your business, Beckett, we’re handling it,” Espo says, his face set, and Kate very nearly _does_ slap him upside the head for that.

“What, you’re allowed to interfere in my personal life, but I’m not allowed to interfere in yours?” she says, and Espo actually has the grace to wince. “You two are _good_ with each other, Javi,” she goes on. “You’re so much better with each other than you and I ever would have been.”

Javier looks momentarily sad, and Kate reaches out to touch his shoulder before she can stop herself and remind herself she’s mad at him and supposed to be taking her girl’s side. “She’s not like you,” he says, not quite meeting her eye. “She’s hard where you’re soft and soft where you’re hard, and she can let me in. I know why you can’t, Kate,” he adds immediately, and she half-smiles to show she understands. “You and I are partners. Lanie and me, we’re…”

“Lovers,” Kate finishes for him. “Or you damned well should be. And if Lanie catches me out here talking with you she’ll kill both of us _and_ hide the evidence.”

“One reason why you should never date a medical examiner,” Javi sighs heavily. He steps back from Kate’s hand. “Thanks, Kate. We’ll…figure it out.”

“Yeah, make sure you do,” Kate says, “or else you two are totally going to screw up Ryan’s wedding and he’ll never forgive any of us.”

*

Esposito takes to running a lot, in the days after his suspension. Beckett’s off the radar, he’s not answering Ryan’s calls—and Ryan calls regularly, methodical clockwork, every morning at 8 a.m., and never leaves a message—and obviously he can’t go to Lanie. Javi’s protecting himself, shutting down a little; it’s how he copes, when the external threats are beyond his control and the internal threats are too raw to deal with yet.

So Espo runs, jogs through city parks and city streets. He’s never much cared for running as a physical activity—he prefers sparring and team sports--but right now he needs the mental clearing that running provides, needs the silence with only the city noises around him, the sound of his own rhythmic breathing. Nobody bothers you when you run. And right now, nobody would follow him either.

A week after his suspension, when the process is starting and Esposito is making appointments with IA and his representative and everyone else you have to in these kinds of situations, he gets a text from Beckett: _talk to Ryan_. He frowns and deletes it and takes another run.

The next day he gets another text from Kate, _talk to Lanie_, and again he deletes it. The day after that, there’s a buzz on his intercom, and Kate’s standing at his building’s front door.

“Let me in, Espo,” she says into the intercom, and Javi rolls his eyes but lets her in.

“How are you?” she asks when she’s sitting down on his couch, across from him in the dining room chair he’s pulled around because he’s not comfortable sitting with her. He’s thinking about a couple times they ended up on his couch, a couple times when they never made it _past_ the couch because that’s the way they rolled those nights. He’s thinking about other times too, sitting on the couch with her and Ryan and Castle watching the game or eating pizza on a Sunday afternoon, lying on the couch with Lanie spooned up to him—

“Fine,” he says. “You?”

“Happy,” she says, and he blinks, then frowns. But she’s right, she’s happy, she’s smiling, can’t stop smiling, and—“You did it, didn’t you?” he says. “You finally did it. You and Castle.”

She looks away. “That day…” she starts. “That day, on the roof. You were out cold, I was about to fall to my death—Ryan showed up with the guys, and I thought he was Castle. I thought Castle was calling my name, not Ryan, and all I could think about was him.”

“Good for you,” Esposito says, and he doesn’t even try to hide the bitterness. It's stupid, he should be happy for her, but all he feels is betrayed.

“No, listen, Javi,” Kate insists. “_Listen_. Thank you. Thank you for always having my back. Thank you for understanding me. I have needed you every single day since I met you, and that’s still true.”

Espo blinks again. “O…kay,” he says. “Beckett, you sure you’re feeling alright?”

Kate grins a little. “Yeah, I’m sure,” she says. “I have no idea what’s going to happen, Javi. I hope you get what you want—that you get back on the force without any reprimands because you don’t deserve them for having my back—I hope that you can make it up with Ryan because he’s your best friend and your partner, and I really hope you can make it up with Lanie because you’re good for each other. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I wanted to let you know that now, and that I’ve got your back, Espo. I’ve got your back when you need me.”

Javier sits back in his chair and looks across the coffee table at his friend, his occasional lover, one of his partners and teammates. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen either, and he’s spent a lot of time thinking about the past year, the circumstances and happenstances and mistakes.

He doesn’t know where he went wrong, he’s not even sure that he has gone wrong, but he knows he’s tired, at least right now, of running.

He stands up, and so does Beckett. He gives her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Beckett,” he says. “That means a lot. Now get out, I gotta call some people.”

Beckett grins and heads for the door. “See you later, Javi.”

Javier opens the door for her and sees her out, and he even finds a smile for her. “Always, Kate. Always.”


End file.
